34 Facts About David Wilshire

David Wilshire was educated at Kingswood School, Bath, and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he received an MA in Geography in 1965.

David Wilshire was a councillor on Wansdyke District Council from 1976 to 1987 and served as leader from 1981 to 1987.

David Wilshire was elected as councillor on Avon County Council from 1977 to 1981.

David Wilshire worked for Conservative MEPs from 1979 to 1985.

Shortly after being elected as an MP in 1987, David Wilshire saw a copy of the book Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin, about two gay men and their daughter, a copy of which was stocked in an Inner London Education Authority teachers' resource centre.

David Wilshire was one of 76 MPs to vote against the repeal.

In 2000 David Wilshire voted to prohibit teachers from introducing steps to prevent bullying on the grounds of homosexuality in a later Local Government Bill.

David Wilshire voted against bans on hunting and smoking, and voted both for and against the Iraq War.

David Wilshire opposed the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland and was one of the first Conservative MPs to declare that he would never support UK entry into a single European currency.

In 1995 David Wilshire protested to the then prime minister, John Major, about the government's proposals to allow people from Hong Kong to live in the UK.

David Wilshire voted against the introduction of the National Minimum Wage in 1999 by opposing the National Minimum Wage Act 1998.

David Wilshire opposed the idea that MPs should not have second jobs and stated that "state employed parliamentarians" would be something that "Stalin would applaud".

David Wilshire combined being an MP with being the partner of Moorlands Research Service for eight years and from 1987 to 1990 combined being an MP with two other jobs.

David Wilshire was one of 21 Conservative MPs to vote in favour of keeping the additional costs allowance for MPs' second homes, despite the Conservative Party leader David Cameron's calls for it to be reformed.

David Wilshire went against the official Conservative Party line and supported the construction of a third runway at Heathrow Airport, which, although it lies just outside the Spelthorne constituency, nevertheless provides employment for a considerable number of people locally.

In 2009, David Wilshire was among a number of MPs exposed in the expenses scandal, and faced considerable hostility from his constituents.

David Wilshire was originally questioned by his local newspaper, the Staines Informer, about why he had claimed the maximum allowance for a second home in London when his constituency home was in a commuter belt.

David Wilshire was questioned about this by his local newspaper again, in which he said he was "embarrassed, sad and sorry", but he revealed that he had not spent the money allocated to him for decoration on this yet, but would do in the future, and therefore he refused to pay the money back or resign.

David Wilshire later wrote a letter to the paper stating that he did buy the flat in 1987 and that the paper's journalists had been forgetful about facts he had told them, and had confused "furnishing a property with repairing it".

When local demands grew for David Wilshire to meet his constituents over the claims, David Wilshire expressed that he would only meet them one-to-one, and would not hold a public meeting.

David Wilshire told the BBC that he had referred himself to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner as the only way to answer the questions about his expenses, and that the company had never made a profit and had been wound up.

On 2 November 2009, when the Parliamentary Standards Commission ended its probe into him without producing any results, David Wilshire apologised for equating his treatment over expenses to the Holocaust.

In 2000 David Wilshire threatened to sue a Labour Party member for defamation who had written in the Heathrow Villager that David Wilshire was scaremongering and misleading the public about the only hospital remaining in his seat.

David Wilshire received criticism as the author of the piece was a cancer-suffering pensioner who was being treated at the hospital.

The Guardian, which had previously been compared to the Third Reich by David Wilshire, described him as "Britain's stupidest MP" as a result.

David Wilshire was among opponents to the proposal that Princess Diana speak to MPs about outlawing landmines in 1997, following an invitation from the newly elected Labour government.

David Wilshire ultimately decided not to speak, following the opposition.

David Wilshire joined Margaret Thatcher in calling for the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to be released, when he was under house arrest in London in 1998.

David Wilshire said the then government had failed to put its "house in order" to prevent fraudulent voting and accused the government of "systematically ignoring" pleas from the Electoral Commission.

David Wilshire opposed the introduction of identity cards and called for the "removal of innocent children" from the United Kingdom National DNA Database.

David Wilshire was parliamentary private secretary to Alan Clark in 1991, the PPS to Peter Lloyd from 1992 to 1994, and was a Conservative whip in the House of Commons from 2001 to 2005.

David Wilshire was a member of the Northern Ireland Select Committee, a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and became a member of the Transport Select Committee and of the Chairman's Panel in 2005.

David Wilshire was elected on to the executive of the Conservatives' 1922 Committee in 2005.

David Wilshire died in Somerset, on 31 October 2023, aged 80.